Word.ws English Dictionary

fire roll

fire roll noun: a special drumbeat used to summon men to their quarters in case of fire.

Noun

fire roll (plural fire rolls)

  1. (historical) A special drumbeat used to summon men to their quarters in case of fire.
    • The dark, dingy smoke which now began to pervade the deck, left no doubt in the captain's mind as to the correctness of the seaman's suspicions. […] Staunch directed the drummer to beat the 'Fire-roll.'1829, Colburn's United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal, page 76
    • As soon as he could recall his scattered senses, with his usual presence of mind he desired the "fire-roll" to be beat by the drummer, and sent down to ascertain the extent of the mischief. A strong sulphureous smell pervaded the ship […]1838, Frederick Marryat, The King's Own, page 377

Forms of fire roll

pluralfire rolls

Questions about fire roll

What does fire roll mean?
Fire roll means a special drumbeat used to summon men to their quarters in case of fire.
What part of speech is fire roll?
Fire roll is a noun.
What is the plural of fire roll?
The plural of fire roll is fire rolls.

Words near fire roll in the dictionary

  1. fire regimes
  2. fire retardant
  3. fire retardants
  4. fire ring
  5. fire rings
  6. fire roll
  7. fire rolls
  8. fire safety
  9. fire salamander
  10. fire salamanders
  11. fire sale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fire roll (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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